


twisting through time

by Pomfry



Category: Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Gen, I Have Many Problems With Teen Titans, Kidnapping, Super Sons Of Tomorrow Arc, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:17:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: This has to work. He can't let what he saw while falling, twisting, gasping in time happen. He can't let Metropolis be destroyed by a random solar flare, can't let any more death happen.He has to kill Jon Kent, and it makes his heart twist in his chest, because he knew a Superboy, once, knew him back the back of his hand, and now he's gone gone gone. He can't let Kon find him.





	twisting through time

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to my friend zara for saying that thing that made me lay claim to this idea.
> 
> mwahaha.

Tim eyes the Titan's tower warily, his arm glitching in and out as he looks at the Titans.  
  
"By the way, Gar, I'm not afraid of bats," Damian says, batting Gar away, and Tim grits his teeth.   
  
Too many people. Too many witnesses, too many ways for this to go wrong.   
  
He has to wait. He has to -   
  
Tim groans as his arm glitches out again. He grips it tight and forces the two back together. He has to finish this mission.   
  
It _can't_ go wrong.   
  
So he waits. He waits until Jon is at home in Metropolis, sleeping in his bed, waits until everyone is asleep, and then -   
  
Then he sneaks in and gets him.   
  
This has to work. He can't let what he saw while falling, twisting, gasping in time happen. He can't let Metropolis be destroyed by a random solar flare, can't let any more death happen.   
  
He has to kill Jon Kent, and it makes his heart twist in his chest, because he knew a Superboy, once, knew him back the back of his hand, and now he's gone gone gone. He can't let Kon find him.   
  
Jon wakes up when Tim traps him in a red kryptonite pod in a warehouse, the same way he did with his father, and the way he bangs on it makes Tim sigh.   
  
"You can't get out," he says. "Red kryptonite is something that not even Clark can break out of. It drains your power."   
  
Jon shouts again and bangs against the cell, his lips twisted into something desperate, and Tim places a gloved hand on it.   
  
"Let me go," Jon shrieks, his voice faint as he sinks to the ground, his shoulders wracked with coughs.   
  
"I can't," Tim says, almost sadly, and Jon shuts his eyes, shivering violently in his pajamas.   
  
"Please," Jon whispers, Tim shakes his head, tapping against the pod.   
  
"Can't."   
  
_Jon's ten years old,_ a small part of Tim argues, trapped by time constraints, trapped by when he stuck to no killing and a bo staff. _Damian was ten when he died, and everyone was torn apart. He's only_ **_ten._ **   
  
_Millions of people dead,_ Tim thinks, and the images flash in his mind. _Millions of people dead. I can prevent that._   
  
_He's only ten._   
  
"I need to do this," Tim says aloud, and Jon looks up at him, eyes hooded beneath his hair.   
  
"What are you going to do to me," he asks, and Tim smiles, slightly unhinged, slightly deranged.   
  
"I'm going to kill you," he says, and watches as Jon's eyes widen. "So you won't kill millions."   
  
"I wouldn't," Jon says, breath coming faster in terror, and Tim's smile turns into a grin that shows a few too many teeth.   
  
"You would," he says, a little gleeful, and Jon closes his eyes, slumping over.   
  
_He wouldn't,_ that small part of Tim says. _Not on purpose. If we taught him how to control it -_   
  
But that's not a luxury Tim has, not anymore, not when he's being torn apart at the seams by ribbons of time.

  
  
\--

  
  
Damian gets the alarm when he's on patrol, guilt eating away at his mind for not giving Jon a mission.   
  
Lois went into Jon's room and he was gone, the only evidence an open window.   
  
Damian hasn't spoken to him today since that disastrous Titans meeting - and it burns, it hurts that his own team doesn't trust him, that they see him as a replacement for Tim at times, but he's forever been replaceable, been the replacement - and immediately changes course, because his best friend is missing, and Jon is the only one who doesn't see him as a replacement.   
  
Damian's been playing catch up to a ghost and a legend and -   
  
And he's sick of it.   
  
Jon's missing and his friend could possibly be in danger, and Damian slips into Jon's window silently.   
  
There's no immediate clues, but Damian's been trying to emulate a man who his grandfather called detective, so he notices the little details.   
  
The scruff on the window, the scratch on the bed. The way the covers were moved, as though Jon was lifted up gently so that he wouldn't wake up. The way a single strand of hair had drifted onto the floor.   
  
Damian's had to refine his detection skills.   
  
Someone took Jon. And there's only one person who would with these kind of skills - his _family's_ skills.   
  
"Drake," Damian breathes, fury sparking in his chest, and he leaps to his feet, yanking out his phone and calling Raven.   
  
She picks up after five rings, her irritated voice making him grit his teeth. "What?"   
  
"Jon got kidnapped," he snaps, and that stops her short. "Can you find him?"   
  
She goes silent for a second. "I...I can't. I can't locate him."   
  
Damian groans and runs a hand through his hair, balancing on a rooftop, eyes roaming, looking for a blur in the air.   
  
"Damian, why don't we get the Titans together," Raven starts, and Damian snarls at her.   
  
_"No."_ He wondered, once, when they blamed him for things he didn't do, if Raven even cared when she caught wind of his emotions, but now he doesn't care. His team doesn't like him. They don't trust him. They -   
  
"You'll argue amongst yourselves and then we'll lose Jon. I don't have time for your goddamn shenanigans, when the only person on the Teen Titans who doesn't see me as a replacement is in danger."   
  
Damian leaps from one building to the next, pulling up the computer on his glove and accessing cameras on the street. No sign of Jon, but then, this is Drake.   
  
"Damian," Raven starts, rallying herself, and Damian holds in a sharp snort. "We don't see you as a replacement for Tim."   
  
"Then _why_ do you remind me all the time that he started this group? _Why_ do you say that I don't trust you, that Drake would, when you don't trust me because I don't want to share some things with you?" Damian stops by a store, eyes flicking between the videos. Nothing so far. "I don't even care anymore. I'm done trying to replace him. I got you together to save your lives, and that's _it._ I'm done with the Teen Titans. I'm not a chameleon. Sorry I couldn't be Drake."   
  
Damian hangs up and shoves his phone in his belt, enlarging an image on the screen, and -   
  
There. A flash of cape. A hint of pyjamas. A pale foot.   
  
Jon.   
  
Damian bares his teeth in a grin and follows it to a warehouse.   
  
"Found you," Damian laughs, and it's not a pleasant sound. It's rough and warped and oh so tired. Drake made a mistake taking Jon.   
  
He made a _big_ mistake.

  
  
\--

  
  
Jon doesn't know what's going on. He woke up in a pod made of red, and he's cold. He's cold and scared and a man claiming to be Tim Drake is pacing in front of him, fingers twitching on his gun as his leg glitches in and out.   
  
Jon pulls his knees to his chest, nervously keeping an eye on the so called Batman of Tomorrow.   
  
Damian told him about this Tim, in the scattered moments when he had time to call.   
  
He's been flung through time and so many possible outcomes that he's lost his mind. He's caught up in the what-ifs, in the future that maybe could be, and he doesn't stop to think about what his actions do.   
  
Jon pulls at his pants.   
  
Damian's been busy, these last three months. The Teen Titans have been running him ragged, and he's had to do patrol at night as well as schoolwork in between everything else. When he finally has time to call, he sounds exhausted, and Jon just wants him to _sleep,_ but leading the Titans is a full time job.   
  
What he said today was the build up of three months of frustrations, and the breaking point was the fact that he wasn't able to join the Teen Titans, to help relieve his friend of the workload.   
  
Jon knows that the rest of the Titans see Damian as a replacement. He's noticed the way Damian sometimes wants to snap at them, the thoughts that run through his head - _I'm not Drake, why don't you understand?_ \- because Jon's learned to read Damian.   
  
He doesn't understand how they haven't. He doesn't understand how they haven't noticed the way Damian is starting to crack under the pressure with so little time.   
  
Jon frowns and wiggles his toes.   
  
He wants Damian to step down for a bit. He wants him to relax, to go on a silly case with him that involves finding pets. He wants Damian to try to teach him how to patrol.   
  
Jon -   
  
Jon just wants his friend to be happy. And he isn't like that with the Titans.   
  
Damian wants to please everyone. Dick wants him, so Damian is him. Bruce wants a son and a Robin, so Damian is that. The Teen Titans want Tim back, so he tries to be Tim. But here's the thing. With Dick and Bruce, Damian doesn't have to pretend, because they just want him to be him. But with the Teen Titans?   
  
Damian trying to act but he's not Tim.   
  
And they resent him for it.   
  
Jon sighs. He wants to go home.   
  
A tap on the kryptonite makes him look up, and Drake is there, smile still on his lips as he taps the gun against it. Jon scoots back until he's as far away as possible.   
  
"Damian's on his way," Tim say, smile still unnaturally big, and Jon remembers the one tim he saw Joker. Tim's smile reminds him of that.   
  
"Then you'll know that he'll kick your butt," Jon retorts, and Drake snorts at him.   
  
"I know his every move," he says, spreading his hands. "I've been falling through time, Superboy. I've seen every possible iteration of him."   
  
Jon forces a smile. "Then you'll know that he doesn't give up."   
  
Damian drops from above, landing on Jon's pod, drawing a sword and standing in front of him protectively. "Don't you dare hurt him," Damian growls, and Jon looks around for the Titans, but -   
  
But there's no Gar, small and green, no Raven, no Starfire, no Aqualad, no one is here to help. And, suddenly, the tense line of Damian's shoulders make a horrible amount of sense.   
  
Damian snapped. The dam holding back the words broke and Damian let out the fact that he knows they're mad at him for trying to be Tim, despite the fact that he's _trying._   
  
"Oh, Damian," Jon says softly, anger rising. Because he's done with the way that they look down on him, but to abandon Damian too -   
  
Well. Let's just say Jon is not happy with the Teen Titans.   
  
Tim rolls his eyes. "What, no Teen Titans?"   
  
"No," Damian says coldly.   
  
"Such a shame," Drake sighs, before spinning his guns and starting to shoot. Damian leaps to the side and Jon instinctually cowers as the bullets rain down on the kryptonite.   
  
There's power under his skin, rising rising rising, and it burns and it hurts, but -   
  
But Damian is fighting a man out of time, and Jon needs to get out of this trap.   
  
The power is wild, undirected, but when Damian gets thrown across the room _and he doesn't get up,_ Jon explodes.   
  
He glows in rage and the pod disappears, shattered into red tinted class, and Drake stumbles back,   
  
"Stop hurting him!"   
  
And with that, Jon is no more, consumed by the power within him.

  
  
\--

  
  
Damian wakes up to dust and smoke. He coughs, sitting up, and the warehouse is rubble around him, the stones falling in random formation.   
  
There's a taste in the air that smells of pure, unadulterated power.   
  
"Jon," is the first word Damian says, the name as gasp against the ringing in his ears.   
  
He looks around and -   
  
There. Blue pyjamas.   
  
Damian crawls over and pulls Jon out from under a walk, face streaked with grime and peaceful in a way only found in sleep.   
  
A portal snaps shut behind him, three legendary superheroes taking Drake with them.   
  
Damian doesn't take notice, gently slapping Jon's cheek to wake him up. Jon scrunches up his nose, but opens his eyes. Damian chokes on a sob and wraps his arms around his best friend, holding him close as though that's the only thing left.   
  
And maybe it is. 

  
\--

  
  
There's fall out, of course. Drake is gone and so is half the dock. The Titans try to bring Damian back, but Jon looks them in the eyes and says, "No. You don't need him leading you. Find someone else who will and is older."   
  
Damian had been too shocked to do anything but nod.   
  
And just like that, Damian isn't part of the Teen Titans. It's - freeing, in a way. He hadn't realized just how busy they made him.   
  
Fall out.   
  
But there's enough good consequences - such as Jon finding his solar flare power, as unreliable as it is, but it _works_  and that's what is important.   
  
Jon grins and Damian smiles, and they're partners in crime, like always.   
  
It's not a perfect ending, but, honestly, they don't care. This is good enough for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and brighten up my day and are saved in my Gmail.
> 
> Also! Here's my [Tumblr.](http://nikescaret.tumblr.com) Come visit and chat with me if you want!


End file.
